orchestra21

The Louisville Orchestra, of which I am resident conductor, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday. Read more about how the situation unfolded over the past few weeks.

For a variety of reasons I will refrain from comment at this time. Future performances with the LO will be added to the concerts area of my site.

GPOYW excited to be onstage again with these guys EDITION

Also, GPOYW give it up for shaved heads! EDITION

Also, GPOYW separated at birth? EDITION

[Backstage at the Louisville Orchestra in 2009 with Tim and Phil Hanseroth of the Brandi Carlile Band, via]

When the Louisville Orchestra contacted me several years ago about joining its artistic staff I was immediately interested for two very specific reasons – the orchestra’s historic, city-wide music education program and its legendary series of commissions and world premiere performances, recordings and broadcasts during the middle part of the twentieth century. That latter aspect of the LO’s history is revisited in a new documentary, Music Makes A City, about the civic leaders and musicians who placed the creation of new art at the heart of their orchestra’s identity:

If you have any interest in the histories of modernist music, American orchestras, recorded media and/or civic engagement with the arts this film tells a story you should know. The New York Times notes, ‘viewers unfamiliar with artists like Lukas Foss and Gunther Schuller [among many others] will find themselves agreeably challenged and stirred.’ And as the film documents, the Louisville Orchestra at the height of its time as the world’s leading new music ensemble did the same thing for the citizens of Louisville and countless music lovers worldwide.

In the half century that has elapsed since the period documented in Music Makes A City orchestras in this country have essentially abandoned the twin lynchpins of the Louisville Orchestra’s success – the creation of new content and its broad and lasting dissemination through savvy use of media. Regrettably for our entire field, no approaches could possibly be more vital and potentially successful than these in today’s wide-open digital media environment.

This weekend I was featured in the ongoing Courier-Journal series on lessons learned through work. My interview with Matt Frassica touches on a variety of challenges in the classical music business that have helped form my outlook on conducting and orchestra leadership.

Regarding orchestras:

I think orchestras have sometimes walled themselves off a little bit by saying, “This is what we do, and we don’t do other things.” We don’t have to be quite so self-limiting.

On becoming a conductor and, more essentially, a leader:

When you go through school you learn the mechanics and, hopefully, you learn about the repertoire. But as a conductor you don’t really learn how to be a leader in a larger sense of the word, whether it’s leading a performance or leading an organization. I try to build consensus and to encourage everybody I work with to buy into what we’re doing.

Tumblr shout-out!:

I really admire some of the [tech] companies for the way they do business. I think we could learn a lot from them. I love Tumblr, and I love the way they seem to be very approachable and inclusive and open. They’re very responsive to their users. I feel that orchestras can learn a lot from that.

On symphonic programming:

We do curate a tradition, but have started to realize that even though that’s one important thing we do, we also have to help establish new traditions and open our canon to new voices.

Responding to a living sound:

As a conductor it’s the sound of the orchestra that provides the greatest feedback. I’m searching for the right language or the right gesture that encourages a particular sound from the orchestra, and when the orchestra achieves that sound I immediately run back through all the steps I took to get there and find out what was it I did that helped to facilitate that.